Graveyard of the Sea

by Penny Draper

Nell helps in her father's lighthouse on the Vancouver Island coast but when a ship crashes on the rocks will she be able to actually save lives?

High above the crashing waves on the rugged west coast of Canada stands the lighthouse Nell calls home. It's a tiny world, just the ocean in front and the rainforest in back, but she loves every inch. So when Nell's father wants to send her away to school in Victoria, she refuses to go.

Nell decides to become so helpful to her father that he can't send her away. Her big chance comes when the government runs a telegraph line though the forest, connecting the isolated lighthouses. Nell studies the Morse code manual, teaching herself how to be a telegraph operator. And her study pays off the night she sends an S.O.S. for a stricken ship, aground on the rocks. She feels like a hero, until the telegraph tells her that the rescue went terribly wrong. What is the use of talking to other people if they can't help?

Nell is through with rescues. But early one morning after a terrible storm, she sees yet another ship run aground in the Graveyard of the Pacific. Nell has to get help, but the storm has taken the telegraph lines down.All alone at the lighthouse, is there nothing she can do?

This title is based on two famous west coast shipwrecks. In January 1906, The Valencia, carrying over 100 passengers and 65 crew, missed the turn into Juan de Fuca Strait and ran aground on the west coast of Vancouver Island. A mere eleven months later the Coloma followed. It was a deadly year for the Graveyard of the Pacific, one that spurred the government to build the West Coast Lifesaving Trail as a rescue route for shipwrecked mariners.

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About the Author

Penny is an author, a bookseller, and a storyteller who lives in Victoria, BC. Originally from Toronto, she received a degree in Literature from Trinity College, University of Toronto and on the side, attended the Storytellers' School of Toronto.

For many years, Penny shared tales as a professional storyteller at schools, libraries, conferences, festivals, and on radio and television. She has told stories in an Arabian harem and from inside a bear's belly – but that is a story in itself.

Penny Draper's first juvenile fiction novel, Terror at Turtle Mountain, was a finalist for the Silver Birch Young Reader's Choice Award in Ontario, as well as the Diamond Willow Award, the Geoffrey Bilson Award for Historical Fiction for Young People and Book of the Year for the ForeWord Magazine Awards in the USA. It is part of Coteau Books for Kids Disaster Strikes! Series. The series also includes Penny's second book, Peril at Pier Nine, also a finalist for the Silver Birch Young Reader's Choice Award, Graveyard of the Sea, winner of the Bolen Book Prize and a Moonbeam Children's Award, and her latest A Terrible Roar of Water.

From the author:

I have always loved sharing stories. When I was out with my children, driving in the car or waiting in the grocery store lineup, there wasn't always a book handy so I started to tell stories without a book. I told lots and lots of stories until my brain filled up and there was no more room. That's when I started to write my stories down; I needed to make room in my head!

I first heard the true tale of the disaster at Turtle Mountain from another storyteller and I wanted to learn more about this piece of Canadian history. The research led me to visit the Frank Slide, which is an awe-inspiring place. The huge limestone boulders still lay where they fell over a hundred years ago and to this day hardly any trees or plants grow there. I couldn't help but wonder how terrifying it must have been to be living in Frank that night so I created Nathalie, my heroine. By writing Nathalie's story, I could see the slide through her eyes. That led me to other disasters in other parts of Canada, and other characters like Jack and Nell who also had stories to tell. Sometimes my children call me the "Disaster Queen." They say that's an entirely appropriate description of me.

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About Coteau Books

Founded in 1975 in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, and currently operating out of offices in Regina, Coteau Books' mission is to publish and present to the world markets new voices and works of literary excellence from the Canadian literary community, with an emphasis on Saskatchewan and prairie writers.

Acknowledgements

Coteau Books acknowledges the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund for our publishing activities.